Author: manuscrypts

  • Chesapeake

    James A Michener

    From 1583 to 1978 the saga rolls, tracking the lives of individuals, their families, the society they live in, and most importantly the place where all of this happens. Chesapeake is as much about a way of life, as it is about the place and its people.

    The book is typical Michener, and uses individual stories across generations to show the way a place and its society has evolved. Even as each generation’s story is read, it is difficult to realise the passage of time, since sometimes the changes are too subtle to be noticed.

    As many of the place’s characteristics remain unchanged, despite human efforts, it becomes easier to acknowledge the transience of man, and the things he builds, not just boats, buildings etc, but even the constructs of the society he lives in.

    The book captures the plight of the Indians who were the original inhabitants of the area, the arrival of the first conquerors, the American war of Independence, the slave trade, the Civil War, World War 2, Watergate, some of them in the foreground, and some in the background, as the fortunes of individuals and families rise and fall.

    Humans, nature, and human nature – a good mix. 🙂

  • All I have to do is dream…

    Yes. Quite liked the movie – Inception. Mostly because I found the concept  (dream incubation, lucid dreaming) interesting and because it forced me to pay attention. Sometimes, movies like that can be refreshing. Of course, it helped that the visuals were very watchable too, and the last shot added to the charm.

    For those who haven’t seen the movie, not to worry, the post only refers to it in terms of concept. At a very basic level, its about planting an idea (Inception) inside a person’s head. Only, he shouldn’t know it was planted by someone else, he should think it’s his idea.  In a world where a lot of people anyway falsely claim an idea as their own, you might wonder why this is interesting, but  ignore that for now. 🙂 Meanwhile, since the person needs to think its his idea, a basic version of the idea is planted in a dream state, in the subconscious.

    Like the movie maker has said about the end, its whatever you want it to be, so here goes. The other reason I liked the movie was because of the ‘life subtext” – the part that makes comparisons to The Matrix inevitable. I thought many acts of ‘Inception’ happen to us too, over a period of time – sometimes done by others, sometimes by ourselves – conditioning. And since we don’t really contemplate why we choose to do a certain thing/in a certain way, we end up thinking that what we’re doing is what we really want.

    Half my life
    Is in books’ written pages
    Lived and learned from fools and
    From sages
    You know it’s true
    All the things come back to you

    And just like how in the movie, the ‘projections’ (things and people used by a dream-architect to populate the dream world) turn hostile when the person detects an external presence in their sub conscious, in life, the problem starts when we suddenly realise the existence of the conditioning, and realise that perhaps, much time has been spent on chasing an ‘inception’.

    Every time that I look in the mirror
    All these lines on my face getting clearer
    The past is gone
    It went by, like dusk to dawn

    And yet, some would say that their lives have been made better by pursuing that one idea. So how do we really know? In the movie, the people who carry out ‘inception’ and the lower forms of the art (extraction) have a totem that helps them distinguish dreams from reality. I wonder if we have something comparable, but then, I wonder, if life would be as interesting as it is if I did have a spinning top or a rolling dice to give me a better grip on reality. 🙂

    until next time, deception 🙂

    Lyrics: Dream On, Aerosmith.

  • Mirror Images

    I came across this passage while reading Kiran Desai’s “The Inheritance of Loss”. The context is of a young girl, who, because of a new found romance suddenly becomes conscious of herself.

    “But how did she appear? She searched in the stainless-steel pots, in the polished gompa butter lamps, in the merchants’ vessels in the bazaar, in the images proffered by the spoons and knives on the dining table, in the green surface of the pond. Round and fat she was in the spoons, long and thin in the knives, pocked by insects and tiddlers in the pond; golden in one light, ashen in another; back then to the mirror; but the mirror, fickle as ever, showed one thing, then another and left her, as usual, without an answer.”

    I found that I could also identify with it in the context of our encounters with the social platforms around – Orkut, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn.. and how slowly the ‘Like’ and RTs seem to be defining the interactions and affecting even perceptions and understanding of the self. Its not as though people and comments never existed before, but the sheer mass of people we come into contact with, thanks to the social platforms is unprecedented. Through the conversations and responses, we see a bit of ourselves, a self colored by the other person’s perceptions. As the voices around us continue to increase, at some point, is there a danger of losing touch with what we really are? Yes, you could ignore or be selective, but then we’d just get back to an objectivity argument.

    “The biggest danger, that of losing oneself, can pass off as quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. is bound to be noticed.”

    I read that, thanks to @aanteadda‘s share on Twitter – an excellent take on the Ramayana,(do read it) and in a completely different context – that of dharma, it happened to arrive around the same place. Rama, having lived his entire life by what he considered his dharma, is distressed by what he must do with Sita after the end of the war with Ravana, irrespective of what he personally wants. The author thinks that this is Rama’s tragedy, and that of every person who lives by ‘impartial and abstract principles’, which don’t take into account ‘individuals as persons,’ and can’t see the difference between a situation and a personal situation’, and it can only lead to the destruction of the self.

    And so I wondered, whether its people, or a moral code that one follows, whatever dictates what we do, is there really a difference – between the reflections from others and ourselves? Is there one right answer for what should define us and the way we live. I think not.

    We must prioritise, I guess, based on what we think will give us happiness, and just like this neat article on addiction (the internet in particular) ends, “we will increasingly be defined by what we say no to”, all thanks to an abundance of choices, from within and without.

    until next time, you always have a choice, but do you always want a choice?

  • Under the Mango Tree

    This review was first published in Bangalore Mirror (yes, yes, we got our name in the papers n’ all) 😉 Have reworked it to suit the blog’s regular format. 🙂

    Remember Cornucopia in Richmond Town. (map) Its now got a new owner and a new name – Under the Mango Tree. The set up has been modified ever so slightly, the mango tree remains, and the erstwhile elaborate menu changed completely, though it still serves Continental and Italian. Here’s the new menu. Meanwhile, this time, my company consisted of Gautam, Radha, Karthik and Prmod.

    (click to enlarge)

    I started with a Cream of Mushroom and Leek soup, which turned out to be the best among its kind. Karthik’s Cold Melon soup was a bit of a disaster, and Gautam had still not come to terms with the existence of a vegetarian French Onion soup. The Goan sausages made a pretty decent starter.  The Pita and Hummus were only just ok.

    The ‘King Size sausages’ was what I chose for the main course, and again got lucky, because it was quite a good dish, with its caramelised onion sauce. Prmod’s Veg Lasagna also turned out to be tasty enough. The Sea Bass was quite a disappointment  – Karthik was sure it was mackerel, and both the Pepperoni as well as the Mozzarella – Hot Pepper pizzas one were only average.

    On to desserts. The Chocolate Mousse is not something a chocoholic ever complains about, but this one could’ve been better. The Mango mousse cake tried to be the saviour and just about managed to succeed despite some essence extravagance. The chocolate mousse with caramelised banana could’ve been a winner if the mousse had been allowed to be strong enough, it would have worked well with the banana, I thought.

    In essence, some hard work needs to go into the place. The aambiance is pleasant enough, and the owner, Nirmala, helps with the order as well as some amount of customisation. Cost for two people would be about Rs.1000, which would get you a couple of soups, a starter, main course dishes and a dessert. So, drop in, if you’re in the neighbourhood, and give it a shot.

    Under the Mango Tree, # 3, Laurel Lane, Richmond town, Bangalore. Tel: 9686601021

    PS: If you’re in Bangalore, and would like to be featured in a review, drop me a line with your favourite cuisine or new restaurant you’ve noticed – manuscryptsATgmailDOTcom, and we’ll figure something out 🙂

  • Recycling Gods

    Sometime back, I’d written a post about super powered individuals who later came to be known as Gods, and how technology is perhaps taking us closer and closer to these versions of gods. And sometime back, Vimoh too wrote a very thought provoking post on the evolution of Hindu gods, and how, over a period of time, important Vedic gods like Indra, Varuna, Agni etc have lost their importance to a newer set who rose to prominence according to the stage of our civilisation – Ganesha, Saraswati, whose ‘hidden’ characteristics were brought to light. An evolution from gods “that govern the elements of nature to gods that govern abstract concepts of the mind”. He also hypothesises that  in the future, the list will be further transformed when man realises that the universe is more of a network than a hierarchy and when he finds himself at par with the highest of gods and the lowest of forms, he will realise his divinity.

    I’ve always wondered whether the original set of gods was a small number and as needs arose, historical characters were pushed into divinity, their stories exaggerated, and for later generations they served as gods. The original triumvirate – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva have remained more or less a constant in their importance, though Brahma lost out in terms of places of worship.  But the evolution of gods is something I completely agree with.  As our needs changed and the things we could control changed, it was perhaps inevitable that the things we attributed to them would change. More importantly, they also changed with out interpretations of good and evil. Since our gods have always been close to us, their character and behaviour also reflected this change in ethos.  Huffington Post says they’re now pop culture, through Bollywood movies, for example. But yes, they were always more human, and ‘approachable’ anyway.

    It does bring up a point though. I wonder how our current depiction of Hindu Gods would affect how later generations perceive them. The modern retelling, which sometimes adds layers hitherto absent. Imagine a future generation treating Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana the way we treat the vedas now simply because earlier sources may not stand the test of time. If they saw Sippy’s Mahabharat and also saw Jha’s Rajneeti, would they be able to grasp the parallel? Or would they miss it because they haven’t ‘lived’ with the gods like we have? ‘Sita’ in the television series was ‘Deepika’, the actress, who has also played other roles in serials and movies. So, without a context, it might be just another role she did. There is a reason I’m thinking this way. Any of the gods could be just a role play – incarnations/manifestations – different roles in different contexts at different times. We rely on certain images and certain texts which are possibly incomplete in their current form. And thus rises the question that invariably gets asked in such discussions – who created who?

    Each age fills up the void of its unknown with its own versions of God or his opposite number. Like Vimoh states at the end of his post, the future explorer will be an amalgamation – with knowledge from many disciplines. For now, we pursue the mystery from among the tools we choose based on our interest, bias, and faith – science, religion, philosophy, and so on. The question is, will we ever reach a point when everything is known, and the God shaped hole would be finally filled with our knowledge. Maybe that’s the point when the current Brahma gets irritated and presses the ‘Delete All’ button, and the Brahman starts with the next Brahma. 🙂

    until next time, divine grapevines 🙂